Chapter 64: Ning Ye

Chapter 64: Chapter 64: Ning Ye

"The build alone is pretty much enough to confirm it."

Ning Ye held up the bounty photo and compared it to Xiang Yi himself.

Even though Xiang Yi had bundled himself up fairly well, it was still obvious he was a young male — which matched the bounty perfectly.

"But that’s not conclusive evidence."

"I don’t need conclusive evidence. I just need enough to convince myself."

"..."

Xiang Yi had no idea what to say to that. It was genuinely hard to argue with.

But Ning Ye went on: "What actually convinced me you’re the one is the news from the neighboring Star System."

"There was a prison riot in the Liuyun Star System next door. Their spokesperson claimed it was caused by an Abnormality incident — which lines up perfectly with the person who just had a bounty put on them."

"That’s a coincidence. Doesn’t have anything to do with me."

"Is that so?"

Ning Ye clearly wasn’t buying it.

She was certain the person who had triggered the Abnormality crisis at that prison was Xiang Yi.

Her slender fingers tapped the bounty on the terminal as she spoke. "The basic information on a bounty has to be accurate — otherwise there’s no way to find the target, and it’s just wasted money."

"I looked into every Abnormality incident that broke out in nearby Star Systems recently. The only one that affected hundreds of people was the prison riot."

"And this bounty only appeared on Anka Star. Nothing like it has ever come up here before."

Xiang Yi wasn’t about to admit anything outright. He pushed back: "At most, that proves a connection between the prison riot and the bounty. It doesn’t prove I’m the person they’re looking for."

Ning Ye looked like she still had more up her sleeve. "Three days ago — the same day our scavenger crew set up camp in the abandoned district — there was a ship crash."

"We were outside the city at the time and didn’t notice, but I looked into it when we got back."

"That ship came from the Liuyun Star System next door. It didn’t depart directly from the prison, but the bounty appeared in the Dark Zone right around the time of the crash."

"The ship’s flight path was made public yesterday. It passed directly over this abandoned district."

Xiang Yi zeroed in on the gap in her logic. "So you’re saying I jumped off that ship, landed in the city, and somehow didn’t die?"

"Well, the people who put out the bounty wouldn’t have bothered posting it if they thought you jumped and died, would they?"

"You’re a Spiritual Ability User. You’d have some way of getting off a ship alive."

"Besides — do you really think Spiritual Ability Users are common out here in the middle of nowhere?"

Xiang Yi found himself genuinely struggling to come up with a counter-argument.

There was a bounty posted locally for an outsider who was a Spiritual Ability User, and then, as if on cue, another outsider who happened to be a Spiritual Ability User showed up right where Ning Ye was. What were the odds?

Even Xiang Yi couldn’t argue his way out of that one.

"Let’s go back to what I said at the start." Ning Ye didn’t pile on more evidence — she simply returned to her original point. "Whatever the evidence says, I believe you’re that person."

Xiang Yi sensed there was more to what she was saying. He turned it over carefully in his mind, then asked, "Since you didn’t bring a crew down here to ambush me, I’m guessing you’re on my side?"

"Obviously. I’m counting on you to help me catch Abnormalities. So — is that an admission?"

"Maybe."

Xiang Yi pointed to the line on the terminal about releasing an Abnormality and causing mass casualties. "With a bounty like this, you still think I’m a good person?"

"I don’t go by that. I go by what I’ve seen with my own eyes."

"From the few times we’ve met, I think you’re someone I can work with."

Ning Ye didn’t elaborate.

But she had her reasons.

Xiang Yi had triggered an Abnormality incident inside a prison, and people had died — a lot of them. And yet the bounty never addressed the most fundamental question.

Why hadn’t the bounty connected the two incidents? Why was there no official bounty through proper channels? Why was the wording so deliberately vague?

The news coverage about the prison had the same problem — evasive, unclear, carefully avoiding the specifics.

There was one obvious question nobody was answering: why did a prison suddenly have an Abnormality that someone could weaponize in the first place?

Every piece of information surrounding this bounty was conspicuously thin, as if someone had gone out of their way to bury something.

Ning Ye had seen plenty of bounties before. She knew the targets weren’t always criminals — especially when it came to bounties posted in the Dark Zone.

Was it possible Xiang Yi was innocent? That he’d been framed and thrown in prison?

The available information wasn’t enough to confirm that. But she had met Xiang Yi in person. She had dealt with him directly.

Ning Ye had gone back three nights ago and replayed their first encounter in her head, carefully.

She had spotted just how many slip-ups she’d made — anyone with even a moderate amount of wariness toward strangers would have caught that many red flags without breaking a sweat.

And Xiang Yi, with what seemed like a full-blown persecution complex, would have been even less likely to let them slide.

But he hadn’t killed her to protect his identity. Instead, he’d accepted the partnership she proposed.

She thought he was a good person.

Still, that alone wasn’t quite enough reason to bring Xiang Yi to the institute.

That hadn’t even been her plan to begin with. She’d originally intended to get to know him gradually and let the partnership develop at its own pace.

But she’d consulted her partner, and the advice she got back was to try actively pushing the collaboration forward.

Someone who’d broken out of a maximum-security prison and showed zero aggression — someone who, when dealing with a complete stranger, came across as genuinely warm — that wasn’t a profile you came across every day.

There was risk in getting involved with someone like that, sure. But it was a manageable risk.

And then there was the more pressing, practical problem.

Ning Ye’s institute had been up and running for a while now, and it had produced absolutely nothing of value.

The containment cells for holding Abnormalities sat completely empty. The whole place looked like it was one bad day away from shutting down.

An institute built to study Abnormalities whose biggest source of income was its researchers moonlighting for military contracts. It was embarrassing, honestly.

With all of that factoring in, Ning Ye had made her decision.

Xiang Yi had no idea what was going through her head. All he could do was think to himself: well, as long as you’re happy.

"I still don’t really see why you needed to tell me all this."

"It was necessary. Now that it’s out in the open, there’s at least a baseline of trust between us."

"..."

Xiang Yi went quiet.

She wasn’t wrong. That point landed.

After a moment, he spoke up. "Alright, tell me more about what this partnership would actually look like."

"No rush — we can’t really get into it until after I’m back from this trip. Let’s hope I don’t end up dead out there."

"I don’t think you need to go personally. With a setup like this, can’t you just hire people to go for you?"

"This is my calling." Ning Ye said it with complete sincerity. "I want to discover and study Abnormalities myself. Firsthand."

The moment Abnormalities came up, a flicker of excitement crossed her face — though she reined it in quickly.

She pulled up a map on the terminal and showed Xiang Yi the destination the scavenger crew she’d joined was heading to next.

Their target was a mine outside the city.

"There were reports of something that might be an Abnormality out there, but no one had the equipment to document it, so they need us to go confirm it."

"It’s a bit of a haul — probably back in four days. I’ll lend you my vehicle when I get back."

Xiang Yi nodded and made a note of the mine’s location before asking, "Can’t you just take a ship somewhere like that?"

"Too expensive. And it’s not exactly an urgent situation."

"Several mechanics died at that mine, and no one’s been maintaining the equipment since. It won’t be back up and running until the military clears out the Abnormality and they manage to hire replacements."

"A day or two of travel time isn’t going to make a difference."

Once she’d finished explaining, Ning Ye leaned in slightly toward Xiang Yi. "Hey... can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Blood Crystal isn’t your Spiritual Energy, is it? The bounty says your Spiritual Energy has something to do with high-precision Mechanical Creations."